This invention relates to methods and apparatuses for implanting natural and synthetic hairs into human skin.
For many years efforts have been made to develop methods and devices for implanting artificial or natural hairs into the scalps of human beings in an effort to alleviate the appearance of baldness. For example, as early as 1913 a relatively complex hair implanting instrument was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,061,005. This apparatus included a mechanism for advancing a hair through a pair of flexible needle arms in timed sequence with the spreading of the arms. During this same year U.S. Pat. No. 1,059,631 also issued disclosing the use of a hook-type anchor secured to the end of a hair or to a set of hairs to provide a holding action when implanted into a human scalp. These earlier approaches were generally unsuccessful due to the tendency of the hairs to fall out.
In more recent years other methods and apparatuses have been developed in an attempt to improve the hair retention capability of artificially implanted hairs. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,003,155, for example, hair anchors are provided in the form of darts which may be used on either artificial media such as the heads of dolls or, it is claimed, on human scalps. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,062,214 electrically energized electrodes are used in an attempt to improve hair tenacity by creating scar tissue which encompasses the hair anchor. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,596,292 another hair anchor is proposed comprising a complex set of loops disposed below a percutaneous portion of the anchor. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,699,969 a group of hairs are placed inside a pair of telescoping needles with their ends tied together to form an anchor. All of these prior art methods and apparatuses have sought to attain the heretofore illusive goal of providing a relatively simple, practical and economic process of implanting hairs into the scalps of human beings which hairs remain firmly anchored in place for substantial periods of time. These prior attempts, however, have met with only nominal success. In addition, even where a percentage of the hairs implanted by the prior art methods have remained in place they have been anchored with varying and unpredictable degrees of tenacity. Where implanted too firmly efforts to uproot them subsequently after they have become color lightened and brittle through slow oxidation result in hair breakage leaving the hair anchor still implanted.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide an improved apparatus for implanting hair into human skin.
More specifically, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for implanting hair into human skin that remain firmly in place and securely anchored long after the implantation process is performed.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus for implanting hair into human skin of simple and economic construction and which may be readily cleaned for reuse.
Apparatus is provided for implanting hair having a bulbous end into human skin. The apparatus comprises a tubular needle having a beveled end providing a pointed tip for piercing skin and a notch formed in the beveled end through which the hair may extend with the bulbous hair end held within the tubular needle in engagement with an inner surface of the needle adjacent the beveled end notch.